Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Super injunction: Blog to be closed down...

Super injunctions are gagging orders to stop the UK press spilling the beans.

The lawyers issuing them on behalf of the UK government (yes we know our law) do not send them to Facebook, Blogger, Twitter etc because these are US companies and because they are not seen as newspapers or media outlets.

However, the law is moving in on those who have breached super injunctions that may or may not exist via Twitter and the internet are being pursued. Allegedly.

We have been threatened with an order (I think we go to prison even just mentioning it so let us pretend we didn't say that) so before we zap this blog, in our defense we state:

1. We use blogspot. It is owned by Google and the servers are not in the UK. All postings were emailed to a friend abroad who posted them for us.

2. We have not "outed" anyone except report on what others have said in the public domain (defined as anyone who has access to google search).

3. We have never seen or been sent any injunction. If they do exist we can presume we (defined as us personally, this blog, anyone connected with this blog) are not party to it so how can we adhere to its terms and conditions? We don't know what they are. We have checked the London Gazette and been unable to see any injunctions noted.

4. We have no idea what a super injunction is. Our lawyers tell us they are just contracts with wider gagging. They are not mentioned in any statue book. It seems the words were coined by the editor of the Guardian.

5. We have no idea who most of the people being mentioned are. Ryan Giggs for example is a popular name as is Pippa Middleton. These names have featured on many public domain internet web sites with the words super and injunction.

6. We are aware that libel laws could mean Twitter and Facebook and the people involved could be sued. As we are all too aware, it is only worth suing those with deep pockets and who in their right mind would sue a few individuals who would just slow down the legal proceedings because it is likely they would defend themselves and just cause more inconvenience, bad publicity and a right old media nuisance.

7. We advocate injunctions that are in the public good to be a valid contractual instrument. We do not believe injunctions paid for out of UK tax payers money (MPs, BBC journalists for starters) or media celebs should be entitled to gag the press.

If we go to prison will Rod Liddle be there too? He works for the Sunday Times Newspaper and outed 3 parties to injunctions? Because he is part of the "media" he seems to have been forgotten. If you read his article he mentions 3 people who @injunctionsuper outed. Perhaps Liddle was the primary source?